


Crawling In My Skin

by Crowgirl



Series: Scars Remind Us [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Season 4 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-13
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:18:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ongoing discussion, and ramifications thereof, between Dean and Castiel about the after-effects of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crawling In My Skin

IX.

Dean stands in the hot water until he can’t breathe and he thinks he might drain Bobby’s hot water tank permanently. The scald isn’t enough, though; it isn’t nearly enough.

When he looks down at himself, he’s surprised he doesn’t see torn skin, blood, ripped flesh.

He runs a slow hand over his abdomen, remembering the slow, careful cuts... No. He shudders and ducks under the water again, letting it pound against his closed eyes.

He switches off the water without opening his eyes and fishes outside the sticky plastic curtain with one hand for his towel. He hasn’t bothered to turn on the light. He doesn’t want to look at himself.

He scrubs the towel roughly over his back, his chest, scrapes absently at his groin and legs, then drops it over his head, pushing back the curtain and climbing out onto the thin mat.

He rubs at his hair for a minute, then drops the towel back over the shower rail; Sam has, once again, appropriated the towel rack.

The house is quiet around him. He suspects that Cas knocked Sam and Bobby on the head in some benevolent way because he’s damn sure he made a hell of a racket getting up the stairs. He could barely find his feet until he was almost to the top and then he nearly fell on his ass taking the last step.

He touches the protection tattoo on his breast absently. He supposes that was the first thing to go. Not that it would have availed much against a demon like Alastair … and he supposes his little buddies were just about as strong. What had Cas called them? _Pets._

Now there was a fun way to spend the next six months or so: pet-hunting.

He grins into the darkness, feeling his mouth twist. That _would_ be a fun time.

Deliberately, he reaches out and snaps on the light. He flinches away from the brightness for a minute, squinting at his reflection in the narrow mirror over the sink.

He doesn’t look any different. Face, chest, arms, hands – all the same as they always were. Except now, of course, he remembers being a demon’s sex toy.

‘Never thought I was that into pain...’ he mutters to himself, tasting the bitterness in the back of his throat despite ten minutes hard scrubbing with toothbrush and paste. He runs his fingers absently over his chest, feeling unbroken warm skin – almost hot, really, with the boiling he just gave himself, and he looks distinctly pink in the mirror – then glances down between his legs and scowls at himself. ‘Fuckin’ traitor.’

He snaps off the light in the bathroom on his way out the door and nearly gasps in shock at how dark the room suddenly becomes. He left on one small, dim light near the door in his bedroom but it doesn’t seem like enough. He has a feeling that if he could light it up like Vegas in here, it still wouldn’t seem like enough. The shadows seem thick, real, plastering themselves to his skin in a way he doesn’t like.

He stands in the middle of the room, arms raised and outstretched. ‘I’m right here, bitches. You want a piece, come and fuckin’ get it!’

Nothing comes.

‘That’s what I thought.’

He throws himself down on the bed and the springs chirp in protest. He links his hands over his chest and stares up into the dark.

It isn’t like remembering last Thursday or his fifteenth birthday or the third ghost he wasted or something like that. He’s grateful for that. It’s more...impressionistic. He’s heard people talk about ‘triggers’ and he’s never been quite sure what that means, but now he thinks he knows. It’s like seeing something, smelling something, tasting something kicks over some synapse in the back of his head and there it all is. It can be very like having a gun go off in his ear.

It means that lying here in the dimness when all he can see are shapes and shadows of semi-familiar things, they seem to move about him and his body remembers things he wishes it didn’t.

It means when a fold in the blanket brushes his calf, he thinks he feels a hand on his leg and the muscles of his abdomen tighten in anticipation.

It means when a gust of wind from the subsiding storm, blows a hair over his shoulder, he feels a slice into his flesh.

It means when he sees a last, fading flash of lightning out the window he remembers cutting into a woman’s exposed breast as she laughs, head thrown back, sharp teeth flashing.

He shudders and rolls on his side, stomach rolling again. He curls into a ball, hands pressed over his face. ‘Jesus...please...’

He doesn’t pray, hasn’t ever really prayed, used to make fun of Sam for his occasional forays into religion, but right now he wishes he knew what to say. He knows better than to say something like “Anything to make it stop” ‘cause that’s just opening the door to all kinds of nasty, but a few more nights like this? And he could see himself doing it out of sheer desperation.

It has to get better. It _has_ to. Cas just kicked this door down – what? Two hours ago? It _has_ to get better than this. He rode out the other memories; he can ride out this.

But oh fuck this _hurts._

He whimpers into the pillow, wanting to bury his head under it and not come out again. ‘Cas...’

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Crawling," Linkin Park, _Hybrid Theory._


End file.
